


What's Better Than This?

by materialism



Series: The YouTuber Series [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Supportive Ally Luther Hargreeves, Trans Diego Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26561908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/materialism/pseuds/materialism
Summary: Luther and Diego, two YouTubers with a contentious history, form an unlikely friendship.
Series: The YouTuber Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896223
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	What's Better Than This?

**Author's Note:**

> I read [this amazing article](https://medium.com/@ezrakleinn/diego-hargreeves-and-the-trans-experience-5df0b6814e2c) which really made me hop onto the Diego Is Trans bandwagon. Also, watching this season really changed Luther in my mind from "jackass" to "lovable himbo" and his friendship with Diego was really great. "He shanked your heart" god BLESS you Diego Hargreeves 
> 
> I am not a trans man (GNC non-binary-ish person here, but these are not my direct experiences). Please feel free to correct me on any mistakes I've made! There will be more from Diego's perspective, as he is my baby.
> 
> Title references one of my favorite vines: "what's better than this? guys being dudes." who is tik tok i don't know her
> 
> BIG NOTE: Allison and Luther are dating in this because they weren't raised together, so if that's not your thing, sorry?

It all starts with a comment.

 **Diego Strikes Back** : _you probably shouldn’t be eating that much, bro. If you want your stomach to stay intact. But then again, you would have the perfect digestive system, wouldn’t you, Number One?_

Luther gets comments like this all the time - it comes with the territory with extreme weight lifting and twenty thousand calorie challenges. Along with praise from his followers, his comment sections are full of people acting like he doesn’t know what he’s doing (this is part of his real life job), people accusing him of not really consuming that much food (he really can eat that much without getting sick and then deadlift three hundred pounds), and people warning him of the health risks of the two extremes (he has enough wherewithal to regularly go to the doctor, thank you very much). He’s ready to dismiss it when he reads the comments in response to this one. These give him pause.

_this guy a woman abuser, diego? we’ll crush him._

_Is it possible to virtually roundhouse kick someone? Because this comment is the equivalent of that_

_What does number one mean???? SPILL THE TEA DIEGO_

The notion that he’s a woman abuser is probably more offensive than the initial comment, but huh… Number One. That’s something he hasn’t heard in a while. Not since his days at Umbrella Fighting Academy. They were ranked by the Academy’s leader, the immeasurably cruel Reginald Hargreeves, according to fighting ability - regardless of gender, which was unheard of in training facilities like this. It was just an after school/weekend program, but it was elite, and ranking in the top five spots guaranteed your success in the competitive athletics and sparring world. Luther, due to his height and strength, was naturally Number One. Number Two was a flighty little thing, excellent with tools and outpaced Luther in speed. Only someone from the Academy would know about their numbers, a fact they had to keep secret. But there’s no way that this Diego person could be Number Two, although the two had hated each other back in the day. Unless… Luther clicks on his profile.

Well, Number Two, once a scrappy, angry girl with a name he’s trying not to think about because that’s not what Two goes by now, is definitely not the same person anymore.

She - he, Luther corrects himself, feeling clumsy in his ignorance - he has grown into a handsome man, with a well shaped goatee and long shaggy hair that made him look like Antonio Banderas. (Luther had never been able to grow facial hair himself.) The gender transition makes sense - Diego had never worked as a girl, somewhat uncomfortable in his skin - but Luther’s world up until this past year had been very gender divided, due to the nature of competitive body building. His girlfriend, Allison, works in a world filled with all sorts of variant people. Luther long ago let go of that grudge he held against…Diego, Diego, Diego, but it appears that Diego has not let go of that grudge against him. 

Well, may as well explore his content.

Due to his personality as a teenager, Luther expects all of Diego’s videos to be showing off his skills and showing off his knives and nunchucks. And sure, there are a few videos about that stuff, which Luther watches a little bit of, surprised at how glad he is to see that Diego’s young spark is still there. But there’s tons of self-defense content, geared at women and the LGBT community. There are videos about transitioning, which Luther finds himself lost in, amazed that Diego is being so vulnerable about his body and his mind in ways that Luther can’t comprehend. (In some of these videos, he talks about “a boy from my past” who made him feel like so much less of a man, less of a person, and Luther feels sick.) He does a girlfriend tag with a very pretty girl with tied back hair, a no-nonsense detective who’s clearly fond of him. (Had Luther considered he might like girls? Had Luther ever thought of him as anything other than the enemy?) He does a few collaborations with an intense, heavy-eyeliner wearing girl with a bob who clearly wants to date him. (Diego appears oblivious to this.) Luther wastes the better part of an afternoon reacquainting himself with a person who, it turns out, he barely knew in the first place. He reemerges from his YouTube haze feeling a plethora of jumbled emotions. When Allison comes home late (her own video shoot running a little late), he relays the story to her, expecting her to scold him for prying.

“That’s really big of you, Lu,” she says, instead. “Maybe you should reach out to him.”

“He’s not gonna want to hear from me, after leaving that comment,” Luther says into his bowl of ice cream. Allison’s being a saint for allowing him to eat dairy this late; he’ll probably be farting up a storm later.

Allison reaches out and takes his hand, sighing in the way she does before she’s about to lay out some serious wisdom. “People leave comments like that if they’re hurting. Or if they’ve had a bad day and they’re letting off steam. Maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend or something made him angry at work. I think you apologizing - sincerely - will make him feel better. You want to make up with him, right? I know that I’ve reached out to people who leave nasty comments and we’ve ended up having constructive conversations.”

“I always wanted to be friends with him, actually, but Hargreeves didn’t let that happen,” Luther says. “He thought the hatred made us stronger competitors.”

“What is it with men indoctrinating children with their own fucked up ideas? I’ll be real, he sounds old and white.” She pauses and looks at him with wide eyes before they both burst into laughter. God, he’s so glad she’s in his life. He wouldn’t know what to do without her.

Later that night, after Allison has gone to bed, Luther attempts to write an email. He’s not good with words, was never very book smart, so it takes him ages, but he eventually comes up with this:

_Hello Diego,_

_You left a comment on my channel earlier today saying a few hurtful things, and while I normally don’t respond to hate, something about your comment made me pause. You called me Number One, which was my nickname at something called The Umbrella Fighting Academy. It was located in Boston. I went there in the mid 2000s, and trained there for most of my teen years. There was only one person who called me Number One consistently, and never by my given name. So here goes:_

_I think you used to go by a different name (which I’m not going to say here, out of the utmost respect for you) and that your nickname was Number Two. We were made to fight against each other all the time. You hated me, and rightfully so. I made no attempt to get to know you, and my ego was being inflated by Reggie (wasn’t the old man a real bastard?), so you were just the enemy. In reality, you seemed like a great person, and I think in any other circumstance, we could have been friends, really good friends. I’ve watched a lot of your videos today and I really like you. You seem like such a genuinely good person, and I’m happy you have a good life._

_So this is me, age thirty, saying something I should have said a long time ago: I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you. I understand if you don’t forgive me - knowing that I contributed to your gender identity struggle is something that I deeply regret and wish I had never done to you._

_I’m not sure where you’re located (I live in the Los Angeles area) but if we ever cross paths, I’d like to get coffee sometime, catch up. If you don’t want to, that’s totally fine. If you ignore this, it’s totally fine. But just know that I’m sorry._

_Yours truly,_

_Luther_

He hits send, place his phone on his bedside table, and goes to sleep.

The next day, things go about as usual, if a little better. Allison has the day off and so does he (a rarity for the both of them with their shooting schedules and his gym time) so they go out for a run together and have a big filling brunch afterward. Since they’re both eighty years old at heart, they spend the afternoon doing a puzzle together, only getting a quarter of the way through before saying “fuck this” and chasing each other to the bedroom. Luther will never admit this to anyone, but Allison is his first girlfriend at thirty, and aside from one or two hookups, his only sexual relationship. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job, though - she seems more than satisfied when they come up for air about two hours later. They’re lounging in bed, her reading her latest bodice ripper, him scrolling Instagram, when she gasps dramatically.

“Did you check your email? Don’t think I don’t know about you sending Diego an email last night.”

“I thought you were asleep,” Luther says sheepishly.

“Woman’s intuition. Also, you kept making the noises you make when you’re thinking particularly hard about something,” she says teasingly. “Go on.”

Luther checks his inbox, which he keeps meticulously organized, and lo and behold: one unread message from Diego Costa. He hits open and starts to read.

_Hey Luther,_

_Long letter ahead, watch out._

_Eudora and I had gotten into a big fight that day (girlfriend in the girlfriend tag video, since you’ve watched them, still my girlfriend thankfully), so I was already pissed off. I saw that stupid mukbang video and saw red. It had so many views and you were just eating while talking about dog breeds. Like, pounds of food and Pomeranians. How are you not dead? I’m seriously concerned. Anyway I recognized you instantly. You basically haven’t aged and I wondered if the old man pickled you. I fire off that comment. Little do I know that my lovely girlfriend is a secret fan of your channel (it relaxes her apparently???) even though we supposedly tell each other everything and saw my comment and flipped. So I got chewed out big time for that. So I was going to send you a message to say sorry just to appease her._

_And then I get this really apologetic, nice, thoughtful letter from an alien who had to have replaced you because the Luther I knew was an arrogant, stuck up, hyper masculine bully who thought he was better than everyone else. I was about to delete it, maybe reply with “fuck you” but I heard Eudora’s voice in the back of my mind telling me to give you another shot. So I went to your channel. And yeah, it’s a lot of bro stuff, but you also love animals and your actress girlfriend (good job, Jesus) and you specialize in exercise classes for kids even though you could kill a grown man and I am confused. You’ve changed, my guy. Like, for the better? And even though it’s hard for me to admit, according to Eudora, my mom, and God, I was wrong about you. I’m sorry too, and I accept your apology. The old man really was a bastard, to me, but also to you._

_Damn you moved far! Got as far away as you could, didn’t you? I stayed local. Eudora and I moved out to Brookline (stone’s throw from the Academy, really) so she could be closer to work. We’re domestic queers. Gotta love it. I’m on the West Coast quite a bit though, so I’ll absolutely take you up on the offer. I gotta meet your lady. Gotta see what an absolute unit you are._

_Alright, this is getting rambling, so I’m gonna end it. Maybe we can do FaceTime or a Zoom call? I can’t believe I’m saying this in this the year of our Lord 2020, but here we are._

_Peace and bacon grease,_

_Diego_

At the end is presumably Diego’s phone number with a heart at the end of it. So that’s a good sign. Luther gets out his phone and shoots a _Hey, it’s Luther_ text.

 _little late my dude, what’s good_ Diego writes back, which makes Luther snort.

“What’s so funny?” Allison asks. She looks concerned. Venmo’s open on her phone.

“Just texting Diego,” Luther says. 

"Diego as in Diego Strikes Back? What, I follow your stupid channel drama," she says, when he scoffs. She still hasn't looked up from her phone.

Luther shakes his head, nothing to get concerned about. “I don't mind that you follow my stupid channel drama. Paying your therapist?”

Allison sighs. “Vanya’s in trouble. You know, my old roommate?”

“Yeah, the one who went to Curtis,” Luther says, stomach dropping. He’s met Vanya a few times when she’s stayed over at their place - she’s a shy, quiet girl, a little sad but very funny. Her best friend Klaus is a hoot. Definitely threw him for a loop the first time he met him. “What’s wrong?”

“She was dating this real asshole for a while and he was abusing her, so she left,” Allison says. She sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “I’m in the middle of a shoot and I can’t fly there and be with her, so I’m wiring her some money. Next best thing, right?” 

“Next best thing. Tell her I say hello, okay?” Luther says. _Hey, you’re the one who’s up. Just hanging out with my girlfriend. You?_

"Of course," Allison says.

 _nice nice, my lady’s gone to sleep, as should I, but let’s talk tomorrow ok dude? night_

Luther smiles at that. He imagines Diego already in bed, his “lady” sleeping beside him, typing in the dark. He contemplates telling him about Vanya, about Allison, but it's too early on.

 _Good night, Diego._

The texts become very frequent after that until he and Diego are talking pretty often. Sometimes it’s text and occasionally Diego will FaceTime him when he’s at home with some down time or, once or twice, when he’s doing his T-shot and Eudora isn’t home to keep him company. (Luther wonders if that’s a test or something, to scare him off - he doesn’t care.) It isn’t always constant talking - one month, things get very busy at the gym with the kids and Diego gets very involved in outreach after a local community center burns down - but they become each other’s hypemen too.

It all starts with a text from Diego one morning, which means it’s mid afternoon for Diego. Luther is eating his protein oatmeal after a solo run (Allison is on location and he’s not mopey about it, nope, what are you talking about) when he gets a text on his screen that says: _can I ask for a professional opinion?_

Assuming it’s a question about fitness, Luther shoots back: _Sure thing, what’s up?_

It takes a few minutes before Diego sends back: _alright so it’s not a professional question so much as a fashion question_

Wait what? 

The texts keep coming. _stop laughing at me I can see you laughing at me you bastard_

_trying to decide between two outfits for my monthly date night dinner with eudora and lila told me I looked stupid in both of them and I don’t have guy friends so help????_

Most of anything Luther knows about fashion he learned from Allison. Most of the time he’s just in athletic wear or jeans and graphic T-shirts. Diego’s the more fashionable out of the two of them. But if it’s nice stuff, he’s got a bit of a handle on that - his parents were always forcing him into fancy clothing, whenever they paid attention to him. Hargreeves was more of a father to him than his own was, for whatever that was worth, and he always dressed well, three piece suits, pocketwatches, a stupid monocle for what an old timey villain he postured as.

 _I’m not laughing at you, but I’m not the most fashionable guy in the universe. Still, I can offer my opinion as a guy. Let’s do it._

The next response takes a few minutes. _knew I could count on you my blonde boy wonder_

_alright one or two_

The first picture is a more dressed down look, black jeans, black undershirt, black Doc Martens and an orange short-sleeved button-down shirt - not something Luther would pick for himself, but definitely looks good on Diego. He’s gotten more defined since when they first started talking, taking some of his lifting advice, and his muscles are well defined beneath his shirt especially. The second look is a white shirt with the first few buttons left open, a navy blazer thrown over it, and some more formal pants, a casual suit that would definitely be good for a fancier restaurant. He looks good in both of them! Luther still feels strange complimenting other men sometimes, like someone is going to yell at him if he does so, but he definitely sees why Diego has had quite a few girlfriends. He’s a little jealous.

 _What kind of date is it?_ Luther texts. Not that he has terribly much experience in that arena - the whole deal with Allison has been feeling out that territory. She appreciates all the effort he puts in, and is patient with him, but he's still learning himself.

_so it’s a little less fancy, we’re going to the place where we had our first date which is a bbq spot, but we do this thing where we sometimes dress too fancy to go to a not fancy place_

Luther thinks for a second. He's actually kind of still incredulous that Diego would ask him of all people, but he thinks of what he would do and responds.

 _Definitely go with the first outfit. I think the second one would be better for a big milestone, or for when you ask her to marry you._ Luther hits send and waits about three agonizing seconds before realizing that was the wrong thing to say.

_Shit that was really presumptuous of me, oh my god, I am so sorry! Obviously no pressure, I don’t know the details of your relationship. I’m an idiot._

Diego doesn’t respond for a few minutes, and the pit in Luther’s stomach gets bigger and bigger. He knows that Diego’s trust is earned, and that he’s still somewhat on thin ice - which is totally understandable - but Allison gently chides him on his inability to use words at times. 

_relax you big goon you’re fine, I have been thinking about it, so we’re on the same wavelength_

_let me show you the ring I bought_

Thirty seconds later, Luther receives a picture of a modest and understated, but classic diamond ring, still in its box. From the few times he’s spoken to Eudora, over FaceTime, she seems like the type of woman who would really like a ring like this over something gaudy and fancy.

_She’ll love it, dude. Don’t lose it_

_fuck you :) when are you going to ask allie to marry you huh huh_

Luther, who has been shoveling oatmeal into his mouth this entire conversation, drops the spoon right into his lap. He’s been thinking about marrying her since the day he met her, but it’s way too soon for him to even think about asking that question.

_it’s ok you don’t have to answer that_

_alright, so I’ll wear the second outfit when I ask her to marry me on our anniversary_

_thanks you’re a real pal :)_

Luther can’t help it - he grins like a loon. He can’t wait to tell Allison about this. _No sweat. Have fun!_

Luther has never really had a friend before. He’s been acquaintances with guys at the gym, and he’s had mentors, but no friends to speak of. He’s always been kind of shy and awkward, and his lack of confidence wafts off him like a bad odor. Of course Allison is his best friend, but she’s also his girlfriend, and a guy can’t monopolize his girl’s time like that. It just isn’t right. (Jeez, now he’s even thinking in the way Diego talks. It sticks to him like glue!) But he’s friends with the most unlikely person. He likes Diego so much more than he’s ever liked anyone else. And to think they were enemies when they were kids. 

The next day, he decides to try on some clothes that Allison bought for him when she was in New York that he hasn’t tried on yet. They fit him perfectly, of course - she has a great eye for these things - but he has nowhere to go. Without giving himself a chance to talk himself out of it, he takes a few photos of the outfits and sends them to Diego.

_Proof I can actually dress myself._

The reply comes a few minutes later: _those have allie written all over them don’t lie_

_jk you look great, blue’s a good color for you_

_Thanks man_ , Luther writes. 

Friendship, huh? He can dig it.


End file.
